The Justice Department today sought for a third time to delay Oliver North's Iran-Contra trial, contending that defense lawyers will hurt national security by putting state secrets on the public record. The department asked a three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals to reconsider its refusal to delay the trial while it studies the presiding judge's refusal to implement procedures the government argues are needed to prevent surprise disclosures of classified information.

The Pentagon said Thursday it was reviewing classified material that former CIA Director John M. Deutch had on a non-secure home computer and will seek to answer the question, "How did this happen?" Neither the CIA nor the Pentagon have any evidence that any of the classified material was obtained by an outsider, but both agencies are conducting separate reviews of what might have been compromised if someone had obtained the secret information. Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm.

With pressure mounting on the Bush administration over its detainee policies, Republican House and Senate leaders asked Tuesday for an investigation into who leaked information to the Washington Post about CIA-run secret prisons abroad. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.

Despite the CIA's goal of cracking down on leaks of classified information, the government may forgo criminal charges against a senior agency officer fired last week for disclosing operational secrets, according to current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials.

Former CIA Director John M. Deutch is negotiating with the Justice Department over the possibility that he might plead guilty to a misdemeanor for keeping classified information on his home computers, sources familiar with the talks said Thursday. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno had wanted to resolve the high-profile case before she left office Thursday, but her interim successor, Eric H. Holder Jr., has assumed responsibility for overseeing its resolution, the sources said.

The Clinton administration, concerned that it had hobbled its top diplomat in Israel in the midst of the worst violence there in a decade, restored the security clearance of Ambassador Martin Indyk, the State Department said Tuesday. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright reinstated Indyk's right to use classified information "in light of the continuing turmoil in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza [Strip] and for compelling national security reasons," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

WASHINGTON - For the first time in more than 30 years, the Justice Department will revise its rules for investigations involving journalists to sharply limit the use of subpoenas or search warrants to obtain the phone records and e-mails of reporters. According to a Justice Department official, the new guidelines will say that in nearly all instances, news organizations will be notified in advance when federal agents are seeking their phone records as part of a broader investigation.

June 27, 1988 | WILLIAM C. REMPEL and DOUGLAS JEHL, Times Staff Writers

In a corner of history far from the Pentagon fraud scandal that is now consuming his life, Melvyn R. Paisley was a hero--a World War II ace fighter pilot with a reputation for daring and a raft of medals to prove it. Like every other fighter pilot of that time, the young Paisley lived by his wits and flew by the seat of his pants. In defense of his country he suffered permanent ear damage, but when the dogfights were over, Paisley was always the victor.

Jonathan Jay Pollard's spying for Israel dealt as serious a blow to national security as any other reported espionage case in U.S. history, prosecutors said in court papers released Wednesday. "The breadth and volume of the U.S. classified information sold by defendant to Israel was enormous, as great as in any reported case involving espionage on behalf of any foreign nation," federal prosecutors said in a 16-page memo filed in the case of the convicted spy.

The U.S. government had enough evidence to charge a civilian translator at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp who was carrying hundreds of "secret" documents when he was arrested last month, a federal magistrate ruled. U.S. Magistrate Judge Charles Swartwood said federal prosecutors had sufficient reason to accuse Ahmed Fathy Mehalba of lying to federal officials about the classified data he had when he arrived in the United States from Egypt on Sept. 29.